Chevy Chase board member resigned over money issues

Village's growing legal fees contributed to Susie Eig quitting

With legal fees nearly tripling for Chevy Chase Village, the Board of Managers secretary resigned last month even though other officials justified the increase.

The fees were budgeted at $150,000 for fiscal 2009, but a May 11 supplemental appropriation added $250,000.

"In my view, continuing the conditions that led to $250,000 in extra legal fees is fiscally irresponsible," former secretary Susie Eig said last Friday in written comments. She resigned May 12.

The extra money will be used for zoning appeals stemming from building code changes and litigation involving village speed cameras, said Board of Managers Chairman Douglas Kamerow and Village Counsel David Podolsky.

Eig said she did not have a problem with the village lawyers, but that "sound managerial principles and practices" would have made the $250,000 appropriation unnecessary. She declined to elaborate.

Spending on legal fees went up for the third consecutive year in fiscal 2009. The May 11 supplemental appropriation of $250,000 also represents the largest supplemental appropriation for the fees during the three fiscal years from 2007 to 2009.

In fiscal 2007, the village originally budgeted $139,000 for administrative legal fees, but ended up spending $226,000 that year, Village Manager Geoffrey Biddle said. In fiscal 2008, the village initially budgeted $313,000 for administrative legal costs, but eventually allocated $335,000.

Biddle also said he initially budgeted conservatively for the fees in fiscal 2009.

The $250,000 appropriation for legal fees was on the consent agenda at the council's May 11 meeting. In an audio recording of the meeting, Eig did not request that the appropriation be discussed.

In June 2008, the village passed new building regulations that included restrictions on the floor area ratio of private homes. Biddle said this has resulted in a higher number of zoning appeals than he anticipated.

From July 2008 through last month the board heard 23 appeals in fiscal 2009, according to minutes of the board meetings. According to the appeals case numbers, four of these dealing with the same residents and zoning issues came before the board twice. Kamerow said this was not necessarily unusual.

"Sometimes, we'll have a situation where it looks like it's going to go against them, and they'll withdraw it so that it won't be voted on," Kamerow said.

In fiscal 2008, two appeals cases involving the same residents and zoning issues came before the board twice. In fiscal 2007, there was one such case.

But Podolsky said he was not surprised by the higher number of repeat appeals, because of confusion surrounding the building code changes.

The Town of Chevy Chase, which like the village passed floor area ratio regulations in April 2008, budgeted $250,000 in legal fees for fiscal 2009, according to town employee Warren Rizzi, although this figure includes payments for non-administrative legal services.

Podolsky, who also represents the Town of Chevy Chase, said in addition to the zoning appeals, village contracts and legislation, there is litigation involving the village's four speed cameras on Connecticut Avenue, and a disputed piece of property on Cedar Parkway that a private landowner claims should belong to him, not the village.

In a May 19 e-mail to the village listserv, Eig cited an April 27 executive session also factored into her resignation. The session, which was closed to the public, was convened "to discuss the compensation for and evaluation of the Village Manager," as well as "to discuss a personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals (pending ethics investigation)," according to village records.

Eig said it was her understanding that the ethics investigation had concluded, but declined to comment further on the subject.

A subsequent executive session on May 11 dealt with Biddle's compensation and evaluation, but not the pending ethics investigation. Biddle and Kamerow have declined comment on the ethics probe.

Biddle said he expected to remain village manager for the foreseeable future, an opinion shared by Kamerow.

Kamerow also said the four executive sessions from April to July 2007 focusing on "discussion of evaluation and compensation" of Biddle were not unusual. He said performance reviews of village managers sometimes take multiple executive sessions.